From the barn to beautiful yarn, following the fleece at Nome School House’s fiber mill

<![CDATA[In my new segment, In the Field, I go behind the scenes of the ag industry, getting a first hand look at how things are grown, made and brought to life. If you have a suggestion on where In the Field should go next, please email me at

ebeal@agweek.com.

Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” has always held a special place in my heart, and I couldn’t help but to think of the tune as I inspected all the colorful yarn and felt products placed lovingly on the shelves of the Nome School House gift shop. That colorful yarn had made quite the journey, from the barn to the sales rack in a charming little town. But what many customers did not know was that right under their feet, in the basement of the schoolhouse, was an independent wool mill. I was lucky enough to follow the fleece and watch firsthand as the wool became a beautiful strand of yarn.

Chris Armbrust is a lifelong knitter and one day took a look at her empty barn and decided to fill it once more. This time, she filled it with a small herd of animals that could produce fiber for her hobby. From there, her very own fiber mill was born. Armbrust now runs an in-house fiber mill at the Nome School House and showed me each step of the process. The process is like a symphony of sorts, each machine an instrument in the orchestra that brings the product to life.

Those machines have lived quite a life, some dating back to the 1950s. Many of Armbrust’s machines were built to run 24/7, and she says they don’t go down too terribly often. But when they do, her husband, a farmer, steps in to get them back into shape.

“He tells me, any farmer out there can fix them. It’s just basic bolts, belts and gears. There’s no electronic boards. It’s all just basic mechanics,” she said. “He has no idea how to run the machines, but he can fix them, which is pretty amazing.”

Armbrust sources her fiber from producers in Iowa, Montana and North Dakota. She also has a fiber herd of her own, which she hopes to continue to grow in the future. Among her fiber herd is a highland cow, which surprised me, as I was unaware that their hair could be made into yarn. But Armbrust says the breed lends itself well to fiber arts.

Armbrust has seen tremendous growth in her business over the years, but things have really exploded in the industry within the past year, with more young people getting into hobbies that require fibers, such as needlepointing, knitting and more. She says they are craving a more analog way of life.

“It’s to get them off their devices. Everybody’s sick of looking at screens, looking at computers, and this allows them to create and make something with their hands. It’s an extremely rewarding thing to do,” Armbrust said. “You have instant customers when you open a mill, because of the shortage of it in the nation, they’re highly sought after.”

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